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I suppose it is not hard to guess that the great brewers do not produce their new recipes with their usual equipment. One of the things I saw from afar, which was not much emphasised during my visit to the facilities of Damm back in 2011, was a 10 Hl microbrewing plant -so huge at that time- in which they produced experimental batches for the development of recipes. I asked about that small facility, but it was far from the elevated catwalk through which the whole visiting group was moving , and I got little information about it. It was not until December 2016 that I was able to get my nose into a similar facility of another large Iberian brewing holding, such as Mahou-San Miguel (MSM).

“Ater the visit to the Pilot Plant, I understood that Nómada are still gypsy brewers”

Article by Mikel Rius - Director of the Barcelona Beer FestivalTranslation from Spanish by Joan Villar-i-Martí
For the second consecutive year, I am glad to return to this blog to share a few thoughts on the publication of the Socioeconomic Report of Cerveceros de España for 2016. If you feel like it, you can review the notes published last year in this same blog, or even an article written in the distant 2012 and published in Cerveriana blog.

It has been a good year for industrial brewers: a 4.3% increase in production -up to 3,650 million litres- is undoubtedly an excellent figure. The main reason reported is the growth of tourism, together with a really curious fact: 99.5% of foreign visitors over the age of 18, almost the entirety, consume beer during their holidays in Spain. Worthy of a Trivial Pursuit question.

"The study falls short, it lacks data in many areas. This is a job that we have to do from within the craft sector"

It was Arriaca who last year came out with the first cans of craft beer from the Iberian Peninsula. There were bets, talks and rumors of all kinds around which would be the first microbrewery to do it, and finally it was this brewery from Guadalajara to hit first, contrary to forescasts.

The visibility and availability of the brand has grown exponentially, as well as its reputation thanks to the quality of their beers. In turn, once the pole position of the craft cans was obtained, the sector relaxed, and those projects that sounded more imminent seem to have taken more time to plan this relevant change in their processes.

"The emergence of new cans is nothing but proof of the continuous growth of the sector"

It may have happened to many of you. Even without bad intention, it is recurrent to see sexist behaviours in our day to day, when we interact with other people. In fact, sexism is a phenomenon that is fully settled in our society. And as a social ecosystem, the beer scene of our country is also subject to of such attitudes. Advertising helped to create the collective idea that beer was a drink for men, relegating women to simple servants and decorative objects available for the enjoyment of the virile drinker. It mustn't have helped, either. JC: 'The belief that the brewer is automatically a man, is like assuming that the CEO of a large company must be a man'